


Oblivion

by PartyhardDrunkard



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Dimension Travel, Don't Like Don't Read, F/M, Graphic Description, M/M, Mind Control, Murder, My First Fanfic, NSFW, Non-Consensual Bondage, Past Rape/Non-con, Present Rape/Non-Con, S&M, dark!Will, dubcon, erotic asphyxiation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:27:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PartyhardDrunkard/pseuds/PartyhardDrunkard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dive deeper into oblivion, my dear.  Then you'll see the darkness hiding in the light."  Even the Chesapeake Ripper can be brought to his knees.<br/>Hannibal Lecter/OC.<br/>Will Graham/OC.<br/>Hannibal Lecter/Miriam Lass.<br/>Hannibal Lecter/Abigail Hobbs and Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham, if you squint really hard.<br/>WARNING: Contains major character death, BDSM, and rape, non-con, dubcon, etc.<br/>Read at your own risk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Paralyzed

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Thanks for reading this!  
> Just to make this clear, I have other accounts on Quizilla and Fanfiction.net and I'm also posting it here. So I'm not taking anyone's work. :)  
> Victoria Julian (my OFC) is from the dimension where Hannibal and the like is just a television show.  
> So, in other words....she's from here. ^_^
> 
> The epic stuff that's in the summary will happen in a later chapter, I assure you. :)  
> I've just got to lead up to it.
> 
> This is more like a prologue than anything else, this chapter.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Leave kudos, comments, messages, whatever you like. *beams*

Victoria Julian's eyelids felt like they weighed a ton. In fact, all of her limbs felt like they weighed that impossible amount. She felt like she could barely breath. She felt like her heart wasn't even beating. The poor seventeen year old brunette was paralyzed.

How it had happened, or better yet, why it had happened, was a complete mystery to her. She had blacked out in the middle of reading a book, it had felt like a bomb had gone off inside her brain, and now she was in her current predicament.

Victoria wanted to open her eyes, to scream for help, to do something to confirm to herself that she was still among the living, but all of her attempts were thwarted by whatever plagued her.

She couldn't hear a thing except this echoey quality in her ears. Great....was she deaf too? Is this what it felt like to be Helen Keller? She couldn't feel anything. She wasn't numb, per say, but the air seemed to have no temperature. She could tell that she was nude, but there was obviously no one around to see it.

but then there was something different. Beyond her eyelids, there was a light. Flashing lights, actually. She could hear voices, feel the cool and humid air, like it had just rained, feel the wet pavement underneath her naked body. Had she been found? The young woman wanted to move her arms, curl her legs up to cover herself since she could tell that she was splayed out for the whole world to see.

A voice penetrated through her eardrums, a man it sounded like. Probably a cop.

"Oh geez, this is not what I was expecting." He sounded torn between angry and disgusted. Victoria could tell that he had averted his eyes as he had said it.

She still felt floaty. Far away from herself. She still couldn't move. God, they thought she was dead!

Victoria started to panic, and with that panic came a vibrating, rushing sensation. It felt like she was moving at the speed of light. She lights and the voices and the sensations got louder and closer and much more real and then-

Victoria awoke with a jolt, gasping and coughing and retching, trying to take in her surroundings while doing so. She covered herself as best as she could while the people that were around her leaped and scuttled back in fear, shock, whatever.

Her wide brown eyes looked around and she quite resembled a sciddish feline, the way she was curled in on herself, backed up against a police car.

Everyone was staring at her and she was staring back. No one knew what to do. Jack Crawford, who had been the owner of the voice Victoria had heard, looked to the empath Will Graham, who had his eyes firmly fixated on the pavement near his shoes. At least he had the decency to avert his eyes from the seemingly mute and naked teen in front of them.

Hannibal Lecter, however, was behind the two just over Will's right shoulder, watching the girl with keen curiosity. She was mute and had just come back from the dead. The latter was the main source for the psychiatrist's cat-like curiosity.

Victoria's eyes were still darting around. Ninety-nine percent of the cops and medics looked positively horrified, like she was going to run at them and start gnawing on their flesh.

The other one percent was a middle-aged African American man, a pale man in his early thirties that had his eyes firmly fixated on the ground, and a middle-aged white man with cheekbones to die for that had brown eyes that she could've sworn were looking through her soul.

She looked down, curling up further as if trying to disappear into the car behind her. That was when Dr. Lecter realized how rude he was being by just staring at her and not offering her some coverage. How insensitive.

Victoria gave a look of confusion laced with fear as the Dark Man, which was what she was mentally calling Lecter, cautiously made his way toward her, like she was an abused Pitbull that could either run to him and start licking him or run at him and try to maul him to death.

He pulled off his very expensive looking jacket that was part of an equally expensive looking three-piece suit and wrapped it around Victoria's quivering form as she watched him cautiously out of the corner of her eye.

Her eyes flickered back to Crawford, who was now starting to ease himself forward as well, then to Graham as he was suddenly right beside Lecter. She hadn't even heard him coming.

"Can you walk or do you wish for me to carry you?" The Dark Man asked in a luxurious foreign accent that sounded Lithuanian. Victoria wasn't sureif she could walk or speak, so she decided to try. She unfurled her legs, which were rather long, and pushed her weight onto the balls of her feet. That wasn't too bad, so maybe she could stand.

Wrong. She ended up losing her balance and falling right into the black haired man that hadn't even bothered to look at her before a mere few seconds before. She felt his hands gripping her upper arms, keeping her up straight, and she held onto his shoulders in an attempt to stabilize herself.

"I, uhm, I think the latter would be best, Doctor Lecter." The man stammered before practically pushing Victoria toward the Dark Man that was now known as Doctor Lecter.

Victoria froze and her eyes became ever wider as the name sunk into her mind. Lecter. Doctor Lecter. Hannibal Lecter. She turned to look at the Dark Man behind her, now completely terrified if she hadn't been before.

But before she knew it, she was hoisted up Bridal Style. She kept Doctor Lecter's jacket front closed to provide some sort of modesty, but that really wasn't her problem.

Her problem was that she was far away from her home. She was far away from her dimension, even. And she was in the arms of a serial killer.


	2. No Record

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria begins to let her true colors show.
> 
> But is it her?
> 
> Or something much worse?

It had been three days that Victoria had been in a coma. She had passed out the second that Lecter had laid her down in the ambulance.

Beverly Katz, Jack Crawford, and Will Graham had been gathered in a waiting room in the hospital where she was being cared for, discussing findings on Victoria's DNA tests, blood samples, and fingerprints.

"There's no findings. At all. She isn't in any systems, nothing. We even took a picture of her and put it through the facial recognition system and there's no match." Beverly whispered urgently before checking the time on her phone.

"Are you saying there's no record of her ever even existing?" Will snapped, leaning back in his chair with crossed arms. He cocked his head to the side like a puppy and watched her face for a brief moment before looking down again.

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Will."

Silence filled the room. To say that they were disturbed was an understatement.

"And....she had to have been dead for a long time. At least four hours." Beverly continued hesitantly.

"No, that isn't possible. Not with the way she just regained consciousness like that." Will argued with a shake of his head.

"I want to agree with you, Will. But did you hear her when she moved? She sounded like a jumbo box of Rice Crispies." Jack muttered, leaning his head toward Will slightly, watching him.

Will pursed his lips, rubbing his chin. He was at a loss for the first time during any case. He couldn't see anything, he had no design. That bothered him very much.

Will's reverie was broken when a nearly frantic Alana Bloom rushed into the room, panting from having run down the hallway.

"Guys? She's awake."

\----

Sure enough, there she was. Looking around at the five people in her hospital room with wide, curious eyes.

"Hannibal and I were reading her a book and she just....woke up. It was like she had just woken up from taking a nap, not a coma." Alana explained, crossing her arms over her chest.

Victoria's eyes flickered to everyone, studying the faces with a light look on her face. Pure innocence, no fear, no confusion. Nothing like she had been before when they had found her.

"What's your name?" Jack immediately asked her in a hard tone, his face the picture of determination.

The girl furrowed her eyebrows, obviously a little perturbed at the lack of politeness. With a dainty huff, she mimed writing something. Everyone looked at her like she had three heads for a moment until a lightbulb went off in Hannibal's head.

"She wants to write it down." He said in that luxurious voice of his and leaned down to reach into his leather bag that he carried around. He neatly tore a piece of paper out of a notebook and handed her a pen. Everyone was seeming to hold their breath for her to answer.

Victoria leaned over the paper and scribbled something down before turning it around and holding it up for everyone to see.

It read, "My name is Victoria Julian."

"It's so nice to know your name now, sweetheart. I'm Alana." Alana murmured in a nurturing way, sitting down next to Victoria's bedside again, Hannibal following suit, watching the girl with the same curiosity from days before.

Victoria leaned over the paper again, scribbling out something else.

This time, it read, "I know who all of you are."

Everyone froze, Will visibly paled.

Victoria wrote something else.

"Nice to meet you as well, Doctor Bloom, Miss Katz, Mister Crawford, Mister Graham, and.....Doctor Lecter."

Aaaaand, that was enough for Will. He back pedaled and tore out of there like no one's business. Victoria didn't seem to mind. In fact, she seemed a tad bit amused. Her eyes slid over to Hannibal's, brown meeting brown. There was a knowing look in that glance and Hannibal gave her a very slight head tilt in return.

Their non-verbal exchange was so small that no one noticed it.

Victoria wrote something again and Alana and Beverly exchanged glances while Jack visibly tensed.

"May I have a moment with Doctor Lecter, please?"

"Oh, umm...." Alana looked to Hannibal and he nodded.

"It's quite fine." He assured her and she stood, walking out of the room hesitantly with the other two.

The second the door closed, Hannibal's whole demeanor changed, as did Victoria's. She seemed so much darker, it was like the light in the room dimmed.

They looked at each other expectantly, like they were waiting for the other to do or say something first. With a sigh, Victoria bent over the paper again, scribbling away.

"Is there a record of me existing?"

Hannibal quirked an eyebrow at this before looking to her, "I don't think so. I believe I heard Miss Katz discussing that matter."

Victoria nodded and smiled, in a smug way.

"Good."

The Lithuanian shifted his weight forward in his chair, leaning toward her and she looked at him curiously.

"How-"

"Of course there's no record of me." The young girl wrote down sloppily on the piece of paper the psychiatrist had given her.

A ghost of a smirk danced on her lips.

"But you know as well as I do that I am here and I am very much real." She wrote next to her previous statement before neatly setting the pen down on the bedside table, the paper next to it.

Brown eyes met brown eyes again and then there was a voice.

"But nobody will believe a word you say if you told them what's going on at this exact moment."

It was her, but....her lips hadn't moved one bit. There was the scratching sound of pen on paper, but she hadn't moved an inch.

Hannibal Lecter looked down and his eyes widened a minuscule amount at what he saw.  
The word, "CANNIBAL" was written diagonally across the whole piece of paper. He slowly lifted his eyes to her again, but the bed she had been laying on seconds before was empty.

It was like she had never even been there.

But the question was....where in God's name did she go?


	3. Beast Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal is given a taste of his own medicine, so to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope Lecter isn't too OOC, or OOC at all.  
> If he is, I sincerely apologize.
> 
> This chapter is definitely the most suspenseful of the bunch (so far, that is). No juicy yummyness yet, but it had me on the edge of my seat while I was writing it.
> 
> Slight Hannibal/Abigail in this chapter. Will/Hannibal, if you squint really REALLY hard.

Hannibal Lecter usually doesn't feel scared or anything of the sort, but to say that he was disturbed was an understatement. He had to have fallen asleep in her room, it had to have been a dream. People don't just disappear like that.

Hannibal's eyes darted around the room, searching for any sign of her. He inhaled deeply, trying to find her scent. There was nothing. All of his hypersensitive senses were picking up nothing and that bothered him to a degree, but also soothed his mind. It lead him to believe wholeheartedly that he was merely dreaming and that he would wake up eventually.

His calm was shattered when there was a blood curdling scream from down the hallway. It chilled him to the bone. Even when he had murdered his victims, he had never heard a scream so.....so....he couldn't even put his finger on it, but it was not right. Something was definitely not right, dream or not.

The Lithuanian stood slowly, gracefully, out of his chair and eased his way to the doorway, peering out into the hallway. The lights were dim, flickering as if something oddly supernatural was powering them. It was eerily quiet and still, it was almost as if everyone had just up and left.

And it was absolutely freezing.

Hannibal exhaled harshly and his suspicions were confirmed. He could see his breath. He slowly made his way out into the hallway, his senses even more on alert than they normally were. He resembled a tiger in the brush that had been stalking its prey, but found that it had been being stalked itself. Calm, quiet, on edge, and ready to strike at any moment. His brown gaze was cautious, yet dark, as it swept around the seemingly abandoned hallway.

The lights above him flickered and the scream echoed its way through the hospital again. At least he knew he was going in the right direction. A part of him wanted to ask if anyone was there, but the larger portion of him knew how that ended for the Ripper's victims and he had no plans of getting himself killed then or ever.

"Doctor Lecter?" The voice belonged to Will Graham and it was behind him, so, naturally, he turned around, but.....the space behind him was empty, save for a wheelchair that had not been there seconds before. The psychiatrist felt his blood run cold. He suddenly knew that this wasn't a dream at all. That the voice he had heard had actually been young Mister Graham's, but....something was toying with him. And something very dark, at that.

And just like Victoria had known that he was a cannibal....she probably knew that he was toying with Will pretty much the same way she was toying with him at that moment. The thought alone made him livid. He clenched his jaw, balling his hands into fists at his sides as he leaned against the wall. He knew that life was continuing on around him like normal and he wanted to seem as normal as possible. Despite the fact that he was stuck in an illusion that was like purgatory.

Lecter cleared his face of all negative emotion, tried to look somewhat pleasant, but that was soon interrupted when the wheelchair a mere two feet beside him lurched forward a foot and toppled over. He felt his stomach jump slightly and he eyed the fallen wheelchair for a moment before trying to act normal once again.

"It will not work, Doctor Lecter..." Victoria's voice whispered in his head. Oh perfect, she was inside his head. Inside it, inside HIM. Hannibal felt his throat become dry and the color starting to slide from his face. Never before had someone done to him what he had done to others, especially in the literal sense.

"Get out of my head." He growled within his mind back at her. All she did was chuckle and then she was standing before him like she had been there the whole time. Hannibal seemed unfazed, for the sake of the people in the outside world, but on the inside he was quite shaken. Was this what Will felt like? It was quite an unsavory feeling, it was.

"In your head? Hannibal, what are you talking about?" Instead of Victoria being there, it was now Abigail Hobbs. Hannibal's steady gaze faltered just at the sight of her. So much like Mischa, she was. The big blue eyes, the constant look of innocence plastered on her face. He almost couldn't take it.

Abigail furrowed her eyebrows, tilting her head to one side slightly. She looked worried, she seemed genuinely worried.

"Are you feeling okay?" She murmured, taking a hesitant step toward him. Hannibal was fighting a battle deep within himself. He wanted to think that this was actually sweet, darling Abigail Hobbs and not some otherworldly monster that seemed hellbent on driving him mad, but....he couldn't convince himself that it was really her. In fact, he knew deep down that it wasn't, but his heart kept wanting to tell his brain otherwise.

"Hannibal please answer me, tell me something, I'm scared. And I'm cold. It's so cold, where am I?" She had reached out to touch his arm and he jerked it back before she could get a hold of it. Abigail looked up at him with wide blue eyes that were now swimming with tears of hurt and confusion. God, it had to be her. It just had to be. But it wasn't.

"I'm so sorry, Abigail." Lecter murmured softly, so that only she would hear. She looked at him again, the confusion and tears very much still apparent. She shook her head, her lips beginning to form the word 'what', but she had no chance to speak before Lecter took her face in his hands and twisted her neck with a sickening crack.

Abigail's body fell to the floor with a thud, crumbling at the Lithuanian's feet. He felt sadness, yes. But no remorse. It wasn't Abigail whose neck he had just splintered in two. It was Victoria's. Or at least the beast within her. He leaned against the wall again, closing his eyes, waiting for the world to go back to the way it was supposed to be.

He waited a few moments, but when he opened his eyes again, everything was still the same. He furrowed his eyebrows slightly, his gaze floating down to where Abigail's body should lay. It wasn't there.

Ha! He knew it! He felt a surge of confidence in his system, but that was soon replaced when he registered there was no body there at all. He growled out a string of Lithuanian swear words, in his mind of course, and pushed himself off the wall, feeling on a mission. He would find this thing and dispatch it while he had the chance to, by God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUNNNNN.
> 
> Cliff hanger!
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	4. Crossing the Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dive deeper into oblivion, my dear. Then you'll see the darkness hiding in the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ASDFGHJKL; I'M SO SORRY THAT IT'S BEEN SUCH A LONG TIME. I FEEL LIKE SUCH A SHITTY FANFIC AUTHOR. FORGIVE ME FORGIVE ME FORGIVE MEEEEEEEE.  
> *cries in a corner*

The further Hannibal Lecter ventured down the hall, the more he was beginning to regret the decision.  He felt an emotion that he was quite unfamiliar with - fear, maybe? - begin to bubble up in his chest as the lights flickered once again.  He could feel someone, something, looking at him, watching his every move like a bird of prey ready to swoop down upon a defenseless rodent.  The thought alone almost made Lecter scoff.  He couldn't even begin to imagine _himself_ in the role of the defenseless victim.  _He_ should be the predator.   _He_ should be hunter.  Not the hunted.

 

As he got to the end of the silent and still hallway, to the door that lead to another ward, a little voice - his _own_ voice this time - started practically screaming an alarm at him to stop.  To _not_ reach out and push on the heavy double doors.  Which is exactly the _opposite_ of what the good doctor did.  The doors swung open and the new ward before him looked exactly the same as the one he was currently standing in.  Lecter looked down at the floor, his expensive Italian leather shoes mere inches away from the threshold.

 

Another voice, Victoria's voice, began to echo through his head.  Saying the same words again and again and again.

 

"Cross the threshold, cross the threshold, cross the threshold, cross the threshold."  It whispered repeatedly.  It was an eerie sound.  It was monotonous, never fluctuating in tone, pitch, volume, or tenor.  It was also....oddly persuasive.  Hannibal knew that he shouldn't cross over the threshold.  He was a supremely intelligent man, he was smart enough to comprehend that he shouldn't listen to a word that Victoria said.  But it felt like the girl was squeezing her way into his brain, trying to oppress him and take hold of his mind and body for her own uses.  Or maybe, just maybe....to show him something.  He knew that Victoria hadn't been like this when she had startled back to life all those days ago.  So something, or someone, had to have taken her over during her coma.

 

Hannibal suddenly clutched onto a hope, that could possibly be a false one, that all of this was to show him who it was that was inside Victoria.  And he held onto that hope as he stepped over the threshold.  Suddenly, all he could see was black.  All he could see was this thick, constricting darkness.  How could be have been so _foolish_?  How could he have actually walked straight into that trap?  Had he gone blind?  Stilling himself, Hannibal let his eyelids fall closed and took deep breaths.  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  He loosened his muscles, eased his mind, _calmed_ himself, before he opened his eyes again and was assaulted by light.

 

He was standing in his office....watching himself sketching.  It was daytime, the skies outside were overcast.  Lecter circled around to the back of his desk, behind his past self, and looked over his shoulder.  As he looked downward at the sketchbook, he noticed that he had been sketching one of his favorite pieces of art.  _**The Wounded Man**_.  He held his gaze on it for a few moments, noting that he was almost finished with it, before letting his eyes slide across the desk to the calendar on the upper left hand corner.  It was...

 

 **January 3, 2011**.  Hannibal froze, his mind ticking as he wracked his brains to remember the importance of that particular date.  It was after he put Jeremy Olmstead on display, but it was before Abel Gideon was incarcerated for the murders he committed on Thanksgiving Day of 2010.  What was so very important about January 3rd, 2011?  Resisting the urge to sigh, Hannibal straightened himself up from his slightly bent over position from looking at his calendar.  It was at that moment when there were three hard, distinct knocks on his office door.

 

Lecter, out of pure habit, went to answer the door, but stopped short when his past self breezed by him, after slipping the sketch underneath some other papers and drawings on a small table, to answer the door himself.  It was then that Hannibal realized what happened that day, why it was important.....and who was doing this to him.  The door opened, Hannibal stalked forward, seeking to confirm his suspicions, and he stopped short once again when his eyes landed on the face of the person on the other side of the threshold.  The soft features of their face, the barely there smile lines, plump lips, naturally wide brown eyes, straight dirty blonde hair tied back into a simple ponytail.

 

 **Miriam Regina Lass**.

 

The thought that it was the meek, good-natured Agent-in-Training that had cried and begged for just one little botched phone call to her boss chilled him to the bone.  Surely this malevolent entity couldn't be _her_ , could it?

 

Hannibal had no need or desire to listen to the conversation between himself and the young woman.  He had relived the very moment he was standing in too many times to count.  He instead, stood behind the desk, cloaked in the shadows from the dreary light and balcony above him, watching the scene unfold before him, but not listening.  He was watching Miriam, studying her movements for anything different, for anything out of the ordinary.  For any kind of sign that this was, in fact, not a memory....but an elaborate imitation of one that would soon crumble.

 

There was no such indication throughout the whole thing.  As the past Hannibal went up the ladder to the walkway above, Miriam was simply wandering about.  Doing something to distract from the boredom that was surely seeping into her body and mind.  But on the balcony overlooking the whole office, Hannibal knew exactly what he was doing.  He was preparing for an attack.  Taking off his expensive shoes and suit jacket so as to make less, or no,  noise.  Hannibal watched as he silently crept down the ladder, as Miriam found the sketch, as his figure swallowed hers as he clenched his hand around her slender neck.  She struggled, she kicked and pulled and clawed at his hair, knocking over the small table in the process.....but nothing was keeping the doctor from his goal.

 

Life and air were squeezing out of her.  Hannibal could practically feel her pounding pulse and tightening throat in his hand even as he watched.  He inhaled deeply, reveling in not just the memory of the scent of her fear, but the scent of her fear in the flesh.  Right there, right then.  He remembered the lust that had shot through him as she had clawed and pulled at his hair.  He remembered his blood growing hot in his veins, his cock hardening, as he felt her consciousness beginning to leave her, as she went limp in his strong arms and no longer resisted against him....as he gently leaned his head down and breathed in the smell of Miriam Lass' terror, confusion, anger, hatred.  He could taste it on his tongue as he pressed his thin lips to her hairline, his eyes fluttering shut as he allowed himself a brief moment of pleasure.

 

All of those feelings and sensations were back full force.  Hannibal, both Hannibals, would have thrown her on the desk and ravaged her mercilessly until she was completely broken, but they wanted the young Agent to be awake and competent for those deliciously horrible deeds.  Not to mention that that would have left an enormous mess of evidence to be cleaned up.  Lecter watched as he composed himself and let go of Miriam's wrists, letting her unconscious body slump to the ground at his feet.  As the young Agent fell, all the color in the memory faded away, leaving everything black, grey, and white.

 

Suddenly, Miriam Lass was right in front of him, looking flawless, ageless, and altogether in-humanly beautiful.  Her blonde hair was flowing in a non-existent breeze and as she leaned in closer to Hannibal, the memory played on.

 

Miriam leaned in closer to Hannibal, as he crouched down next to an unconscious Miriam.  Miriam put her lips to an immobile Hannibal's ear, as the same motion was mirrored by the memory.  They both whispered at the same time.

 

"Dive deeper into oblivion, my dear.  Then you'll see the darkness hiding in the light."


	5. Conclusion

"I found him.  Jack!  I found him!"

 

"How the _hell_ did he even get up here?"

 

"Is he okay?"

 

"What are you doing out here?  Go back inside.  Who even allowed you out of your room?"

 

"Sweetie, come on."

 

It was around this time that Hannibal could force his eyes open, even though it was only for a split second.  The brightness of daylight had caused his eyes to snap shut the moment they opened.  Two fast, light smacks came to the side of Lecter's face, causing him to open his eyes fully and look up at whoever was the culprit.

 

"Hey now, stay awake, Doctor Lecter."  A slightly familiar raspy female voice said.  She sounded a million miles away.  All the psychiatrist could see of her was her outline, her face shrouded in darkness against the whiteness of the sun.

 

The bright face of Beverly Katz slowly came into view as the haziness in Hannibal's eyes dissipated.  The bright-eyed Asian woman kept her gaze steadily locked on Hannibal for a few moments, most likely to ensure that he stayed awake, before she turned her head to look at Jack Crawford.

 

"He's conscious now, Jack."

 

Jack Crawford, however, was a little preoccupied at that moment.  Somehow, someway....Victoria Julian had managed to sneak her way out onto the roof.  And it seemed like she was refusing to leave.

 

Alana Bloom was trying her best to wrangle the teen back inside, but she wasn't budging.  She was staring at Hannibal with such an intensity that everyone was almost afraid to get into her line of sight - except Hannibal Lecter.  He was staring right back at her, albeit with much less of that frightening intensity.  His gaze was curious, hers was confused, angry, and horrified.  She furrowed her eyebrows and finally let her eyes fall away from his.

 

"I'm not leaving him."  Victoria finally spoke, her voice hoarse from lack of use.  It was nothing like the voice Hannibal had heard in his mind what felt like merely minutes before.  It was the same tone and quality, yes....but it just wasn't the same.  This was the real Victoria that was standing, determined and terrified, on the roof of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

 

Alana, Jack, and Beverly looked at Victoria like she had three heads.  One second, she's writing everything down like she's mute, and the nest, she's talking with perfect ease.  It just didn't add up.  It was at that moment, that Jack actually realized that Hannibal was awake.  And the only reason for that was because he had gotten up from the balcony of the roof - he had passed out on it at quite a precarious angle - and had taken to stand directly beside Crawford.

 

"How the hell did you get up here?"  Jack demanded, turning his head sharply to look at the doctor that seemed perfectly fine despite the fact that he could have easily ended up dead on the ground twenty-five stories below.  Hannibal lowered his gaze thoughtfully.  He honestly had no idea how he had gotten where he was.

 

"You can't remember, can you?"  Victoria's voice piped up.  Now that she had started speaking again, her vocal chords were beginning to warm up.  Her voice was rich, almost too deep for the voice of a teenaged girl, but it fit her face.  Her wavy - almost curly - hair and slanted bangs swirled in the wind as it whipped.  Her hands were in her pockets,  keeping the coat together.  Her head was tilted slightly, a knowing look on her face.  She _remembered_ , didn't she?  She remembered being controlled by Miriam.

 

She caught the look of realization in Hannibal's eyes and quickly looked away, her eyes darting to Beverly, to Jack, to Alana, repeat.  She hadn't meant to look shifty, but she must have since Jack verbally attacked her out of nowhere.

 

"What did you do to him?"  He almost growled, staring Victoria down with an intensity that put hers to shame.  Her back straightened and she looked him square in the face, confusion practically painted all over her features.

 

"What do you mean, 'what did I do to him'?  I didn't do-"

 

"From the second you've shown up here, my people, my colleagues, have been acting crazy.  You can't tell me that's a coincidence."  This almost made Victoria's blood turn to acid.  She glared at Jack with such hatred, such offense, that if she had wanted to, she could have burned to whole through his face.

 

"You think this has been _me_?  You think that _I've_ done this?!"  She questioned, her voice steadily rising, "Well, you're wrong.  You're _so wrong_.  What do you think I am, huh?  A fucking monster?  Well I'll tell you who I _know_ is doing this-"  She suddenly paused, her features twisting into a sarcastic expression, "Or maybe I won't.  Maybe I'll just let you find out  _all_ by yourself.  By then, you'll be _begging_ me to put you out of your misery-"

 

"Okay, that is _enough_!"  The stern, yet still kind, voice came from Alana Bloom as she lightly took hold of Victoria's upper arm, pulling her away from Jack, who looked like he was trying not to lose his composure.  Victoria spared the head of the BAU one last glare, let one look flicker up to Hannibal - who looked as curious as ever -, then settled upon staring at the grovel covered roof beneath her bare feet.  Beverly looked as shocked as someone could possibly be as she looked between Jack and Victoria, as if waiting for one of them to start back at it again.  Alana had a steady glare fixed on Jack, a sure sign that she was going to rip him a new one very soon.

 

"What's going on?"  Victoria looked back, finding the owner of the voice to be none other than Will Graham.  The special agent looked even more worn and tired since the last time she had seen him.  Her eyes slowly went downcast, an all too familiar sadness creeping into her chest.  If there was only some way to warn Will about his encephalitis, about what Lecter was doing to him, about the horrors he might possibly have to endure with a vengeful Miriam on the loose....  But there  wasn't a way for her to do so without ending up locked away in a cell in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

 

Jesus, it would be like something out of Shutter Island, only infinitely more terrifying.  The thought of being under the psychiatric care of Frederick Chilton made her cringe.  She would sooner take Hannibal Lecter as her doctor than that snot faced piece of garbage.

 

"We're all fine here, Will."  Alana murmured, shooting Graham a dazzling smile before leaning her head towards Victoria encouragingly, "Why don't you go inside with Will?  Is that alright?"

 

Victoria understood that Alana meant well, but she really didn't like being treated like a volatile toddler.  However, she kept her irritation under wraps as she twitched something that was a mixture of a shrug and a nod and shuffled away from the group.  She could feel Lecter's eyes on the back of her head the entire walk inside.  It unnerved her, but not to the extent that it normally would have.  She guessed that both of them being tormented by the ghost of Miriam Lass is what put her mind at ease, at least a little.  He wouldn't want her dead because he could learn something from her about what was going on, about what was going to happen-

 

"How did you know who all of us were before?"  Will asked her the second the door to the roof had closed, catching Victoria just a little off-guard.  She stopped walking, rocking back and forth on her feet.  She hesitantly turned to face him, a slight look of exasperation evident on her face.

 

"You want crazy answer number one, or crazy answer number two?"  She asked with an air of dry humor, a slight smirk appearing on her lips.  That got a little hint of a chuckle out of Graham, who swept a hand through his hair before shoving it in his pocket.

 

"Why not both?"  Well at least they both had the same sense of humor.

 

"In all seriousness, though....they both sound really crazy, but you've got to believe me.  Alright, one.  Whatever I did or said or didn't say in the hospital room before wasn't me.  It was...someone else.  But that doesn't mean that I still don't know who everyone is, which brings me to answer two.  I'm not....from around here.  Now, I'm not an alien.  That's not what I'm saying-"

 

"Then, what _are_ you saying?"  Victoria's eyes widened in alarm at what Will's mannerisms and the whole scenario was reminding her of.  A scene from episode twelve of season one of the television show flashed through her head.

 

Victoria's throat went dry and she swallowed as Will stepped toward her.  She, out of pure instinct, took a step back.  She was floundering like a fish out of water, her mouth opening and closing because she couldn't find any words to come out.

 

Suddenly, a black mass darted from left to right behind Will and Victoria froze, her eyes sliding slowly from it to Will's face.  He was about a foot away from her now and she had nowhere to go.  She would either run straight into the mass, or she would be swept into an elaborate illusion as Hannibal had been.  Pure fear inched its way onto her face and her back collided with the wall with a smack.

 

"Oh my god..."  She breathed, her breath hitching high up in her throat.

 

_Did you fish....or did you hunt, Abigail?_

 

_I was the lure._

 

* * *

 

 

Meanwhile, outside Alana and Jack were fighting about how Jack had antagonized Victoria the way he had.  The fight had gotten so heated that Hannibal and Beverly had to intervene, but even then, everyone seemed to eventually turn on one another.

 

"Alright, alright, could we all just stop for a moment and think, please?"  Hannibal called out, making a very controlled version of the 'cool it' gesture.

 

"What good is thinking gonna do?"  Beverly snapped, jutting a hip of, her hands on her waist.  Alana and Jack were still arguing.

 

"What conclusion have we all seemed to have drawn?"  Hannibal asked loudly enough to get Alana and Jack's attentions, "What conclusion?"

 

"In short.....that there's some freaky horror movie shit going down."  Beverly answered with a sigh, shaking her head.  None of them were very believing of 'supernatural' occurrences, but the way that they had all come to the same conclusion, at the same time.....well, it was too odd to pass up.

 

"It's worth looking into, is it not?"  Before the whole question ever even left Hannibal's mouth, an ear-splitting scream pierced through the air.

 


End file.
